Opinion: Infrastructure in the United States has to be revitalized

by Boris Epshteyn, Chief Political Analyst

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Boris Epshteyn formerly served as a Senior Advisor to the Trump Campaign and served in the White House as Special Assistant to The President and Assistant Communications Director for Surrogate Operations.

WASHINGTON (Sinclair Broadcast Group) - Infrastructure is the next major focus for President Trump in the second year of his term.

Notwithstanding Democrat posturing during the State of the Union, there is widespread support to rebuild our roads, our bridges, our tunnels.

A recent poll of small business owners by UBS showed overwhelming backing for revitalizing our infrastructure. Eighty-nine percent of those owners believe that infrastructure reform would benefit the economy. Sixty-five percent are willing to pay more to help rebuild our infrastructure.

The issue is how to pay for a major undertaking on infrastructure. The administration has called for $200 billion in federal funding over 10 years. The president and his team believe that amount will spur up to $1.3 trillion in private investment.

Democrats have responded by saying that is not enough and up to $1 trillion in federal funds alone will be needed.

The numbers being thrown around are huge - hundreds of billions, trillions. But when you break it down, the president's plan calls for an additional $20 billion a year to strengthen our infrastructure. Putting at least that much money to work makes perfect sense to make our country stronger.

Here’s the bottom line: any of us who use roads, bridges or tunnels knows that American infrastructure needs to be rebuilt. The president and his team are going to be laying out their full proposal on this vital topic. It is incumbent upon both parties in Congress to meet those ideas with an open mind. We as a country have to achieve the nonpartisan goal of restoring our infrastructure.